Family's legacy is carved in stone
(Matthew J. Lee/ Globe Staff)
Dennis Deveney etches a gravestone at his Waltham shop.
Dennis Deveney has never felt uneasy around cemeteries. In fact, he pretty much grew up in them. Since 1907 Deveney's family has owned and operated New England Monuments Inc. in Waltham, creating artisan headstones. He began helping his father in elementary school and now has six sons of his own.
The company's store on Moody Street doesn't draw many window shoppers, and unless you've been in the market for a gravestone, you might not realize the skill and creativity involved in designing and executing people's immortal wishes. Over the years Deveney has produced scores of traditional monuments, and more recently, some more creative ones.
"About five or six years ago I had a family whose father kept losing the television remote control," said Deveney. "They had me write 'Where the ---- is the remote control?' on the monument. That's how they remembered their father."
Another recent monument had a drawing of a race car that the deceased loved to drive; another depicted a couple on their motorcycle in New Hampshire; and another included a reproduction of Mount Ararat, the tallest peak in Turkey, an object of reverence for Armenians, and believed by some to be where Noah's ark came to rest.
To create these monuments, Deveney usually works from a photo, which is reproduced by an artist and traced onto a piece of rubber to create a stencil. The granite is then etched with a diamond-tipped engraving tool that removes the polished surface of the stone, and once the etching is complete, lithichrome paint is applied to make the artwork more visible.
Sandblasting, said Deveney, is used for shaping designs like a Greek key pattern or ivy, which goes about a quarter-inch into the stone. Etching is used for fine lines like portraits, which are drawn freehand.
Deveney said that sometimes when a monument is purchased, surviving family members will request that their own names and birth dates also be engraved in the stone.
"I always ask twice before doing it," said Deveney. Recently, he said, a customer's wife passed away and the widower wanted his name and birth date on the shared monument. "The day after it was installed I received a phone call asking for a new stone - without his name."
Deveney has found a niche with the Greek and Armenian communities, working with about 400 families a year. He has learned a lot about the cultures and he collaborates with a few church members who proofread the Armenian spellings before anything is set in stone. He said he's never had a typo and is vigilant about double-checking names and dates.
"We've caught a few mistakes," said Deveney. "For example, we had someone pass away on Dec. 30 and they were buried on Jan. 2; the family thought that they had died in 2008 instead of 2007."
Deveney's father, James, died 13 years ago, and his mother, Doris, is gone 16 years. A photograph of his parents' 12-foot-long monument hangs on a wall of the showroom. It contains a carving of the Blessed Virgin and Child Jesus inside a heart.
"My mother loved people and helped the poor," said Deveney. "Growing up she always invited the homeless to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners."
Doris met many of the people that she helped at the Dunk and Dip doughnut shops that the Deveney family owned between 1969 and 1988. One was in East Cambridge, another in Bedford, and the third was in Somerville.
"We took old gas stations and turned them into doughnut shops," said Deveney. "Then Dunkin' Donuts came along and said, 'Either sell to us, or we'll put up a shop across the street.' " The three locations still stand today - as Dunkin' Donuts.
Compassion was passed down to Deveney, who sits on a number of charitable boards in the city, including Friends of Fernald Association, a volunteer group that helps residents at the Fernald Center, the oldest publicly funded facility for the mentally disabled; Middlesex Human Services Agency Inc., where Deveney volunteers in the soup kitchen; the Waltham Lions Club; the Waltham Celebration Committee; and St. Charles Borromeo Parish.
"My father has an open door policy to anybody that needs help," said 26-year-old Jamie Deveney, an enterprise account manager at Monster.com in Maynard. "He reaches out to people who need guidance or someone to talk to. Growing up even my friends were comfortable going to him and asking him for advice."
Jamie said he clearly remembers the support he and his five brothers received from their parents on the baseball field in Nipper Maher Park in Waltham. "I could always count on them to be in the stands watching us every week," said Jamie. "They wouldn't miss it for work, for anything."
Jamie began helping out in the family business when he was 10, going to the cemeteries with his father and brothers. As the boys grew older they became more responsible for the heavy work, like crating the monuments for delivery, loading them onto the trucks, and installing them.
Jamie hand paints most of the cement statues that are for sale in the store. Each one, he said, takes between 15 and 20 hours to complete.
Another Deveney son, Ryan, acts as the office manager; Christopher researches and sets up new lettering on existing monuments; James and Anthony will be attending college in the fall and work in the family business after school and on the weekends. Dennis Jr. is a sergeant on the Waltham police force.
Deveney has spent most of his life helping others decide how to memorialize a loved one. When asked whether he has thought about his own monument, he paused before answering:
"I'd like an image of a baseball field on mine," Deveney said. "All of my children played baseball and being on the field with them were the best times of my life."
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